CR-CL News Round-up
A round-up of some of the top stories in civil rights and civil liberties news.
Criminal Justice, Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights
Amicus, Criminal Justice, Human Rights
Two Executions: Two Reasons for Opposing the Death Penalty
While the world watches and waits for news on Davis, Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death in Texas. Brewer is one of the men who, in 1998 in Jasper, Texas, dragged James Byrd, Jr. behind his truck. As easy as it is to hate Brewer, to hate the terrible crime that he committed, to hate his hate, his victim’s son, Ross Byrd, doesn’t want to see him die. “You can’t fight murder with murder.”
Courts & Judicial Interpretation, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, LGBTQ Rights
CR-CL News Round-up
A round-up of some of the top stories in civil rights and civil liberties news.
Amicus, Criminal Justice, Education & Youth, Freedom of Expression
[Update] Supreme Court Won't Review Duty To Cheer For Your Rapist
The Supreme Court has declined to take the case of a Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the squad after refusing to cheer for the basketball player whom she alleges raped her. The Fifth Circuit ruling not only upheld the school’s right to punish her for refusing to cheer, but dismissed her suit as frivolous, requiring her family to cover the school’s legal fees.
Amicus, Poverty and Economic Justice
Debt Ceiling Shouldn't Rise At The Expense Of The Poor
There is a lot of talk in American politics about how to protect the “middle class.” What gets lost in all the rhetoric about the middle class is the need to protect a more vulnerable economic group, the poor. If all it takes is a political crisis to cause Democrats to forget their progressive ideals and deal away programs so important to the lives of so many Americans, we can count on plenty more crises to come.
Amicus, Criminal Justice, Education & Youth
Texas Study Takes Hard Look At School-To-Prison Pipeline
It turns out it may the schools, and not the kids, who are causing the discipline problems. A new study from Texas tracked every Texas seventh-grader from 2000, 2001, and 2002 for six years or more to examine the interaction between school discipline, poverty, race, and the juvenile justice system.
Amicus, Courts & Judicial Interpretation, Freedom of Expression
[Breaking News] Today's SCOTUS Decisions on Free Speech
The Supreme Court today struck down two state laws concerning free speech. In Arizona Free Enterprise Club PAC v. Bennett, Chief Justice Roberts, representing the usual 5-4 split, delivered an opinion striking down Arizona’s Clean Elections Act granting matching funds to publicly financed candidates triggered by spending by privately financed candidates and outside groups. In EMA v. Brown, Scalia delivers the opinion of a seven Justice majority striking down California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to children. More analysis to come.
Amicus, Uncategorized
US Airways Crew Unnerved by Black Man with Saggy Pants, Not Man in Women's Underwear
In a story reported on by news outlets as varied as ESPN and NPR last week, University of New Mexico football player Deshon Marman was arrested after refusing to deplane from a US Airways flight based on complaints from the flight crew about his sagging pajama pants. The story has taken an interesting, if disheartening, turn this week with the revelation that a man dressed only in women’s underwear was allowed to fly on a US Airways flight just days before Marman’s loose waistband caused such a stir.
Amicus, Courts & Judicial Interpretation, LGBTQ Rights
Can Being A Minority Be A Conflict Of Interest?
After the revelation by Proposition 8 judge Vaughn Walker that he is gay and in a long-term same-sex relationship, Prop. 8 supporters are trying to have his landmark ruling striking down the California referendum vacated on the grounds that he should have recused himself. This is an attempt to strain the general practice of conflict of interest recusal from family and financial conflict of interest to some other type of personal conflict of interest.
Amicus, Courts & Judicial Interpretation
Harvard Professor Calls On Justices To Retire
Harvard Professor Randall Kennedy suggests that Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer should consider retirement in the interest of the long-term survival of the more progressive wing of the court. Kennedy calls retirement “the responsible thing to do.” Looking ahead to the 2012 election and the prospect, however slim, of the beginning of a new eight-year Republican administration, Professor Kennedy fears that the two moderate progressives wouldn’t be able to wait eight years to retire, and “they will have contributed to a disaster.”
Amicus, Education & Youth
Maryland Legislature Votes To Guarantee In-State Tuition To Undocumented Immigrants
The Maryland legislature voted this week to guarantee in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, and Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley is expected to sign the bill. Undocumented students are not eligible for aid or scholarships, so tuition breaks offer these students possibly their only hope of attending college.